Milestone: Milestone: T he V oices of E ast L os w EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE EAST LOS Milestone: The Voices of East Los Cover Illustrations: Ying He Lou EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE M i l e s t o n e : The Voices of East Los East Los Angeles College Monterey Park, California M i l e s t o n e : The Voices of East Los Editor, Advisor Carol Lem Selection Staff Creative Writing Class of Spring 2006 Book Design Trish Glover Photography Christine Moreno Student Artwork Yeimi Aguilar, Irene Aguillara, Miyuki Aikawa, Ryan Albuquerque, Michelle Arita, Letticia Arriola, Cecily Beltran, Gloria Blancarte, Candy Briones, Rebecca Campos, Steven Correa, Alma Dominguez, Ivan Godinez, Sarah Huerta, Sung Jung Ho, Zhenya Ketikyan, Patricia Lazalde, Iam Lekit, Ying He Lou, Robin Mendez, Ignacio Oliveros, Nancy Romero, Luis Virgen, Qian Yu East Los Angeles College 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez Monterey Park, California 91754 Milestone is published by the East Los Angeles College English Department. Material is solicited from students of the college. If you are anything like me, you do not turn to poetry [literature] because you are interested in the author; you go there because you are interested in yourself and you see poetry [literature] as a means of stimulating your sense of being. If you are a poet [writer], you read other poets [writers] for inspiration . for the possibility that another poet [writer] will open a door for you that you never knew existed. — Billy Collins Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 Milestone: The Voices of East Los 3 Contents Editor’s Note 7 Part I: The Work 9 Christine Appel Gods 10 Rebecca C. Campos Eclipsing Heart 13 Matthew Corwin Growing Up L.A. Style 14 A Simple Operation 17 Samuel Dominguez Echoes 21 Cocoon 22 Great Kingdom 23 Arthur Marines You Can’t See the Hills of Dixon Through the Teton County Haze 24 Noodles 27 Victoria 31 Nanci Mendez A Memory 32 El Salvador 33 My Gift 34 Jason Padilla Go, Che, Go 36 Nancy Perez Little Pieces of Finger 37 Happy Birth Day 38 Like You Care 40 The Internet Café 43 Alonso Quintero Whale on the Shore 50 Nestor J. Saavedra Daddy, Don’t Go; Mommy, Please Stay 64 Fermin Saldana Laughing at Me 76 Luis Salinas Ever Eaten with a Mexican 80 The Unconscious Mind 82 Alone 85 4 East Los Angeles College Pat Sandoval El Dia de los Muertos 87 Grandma Preparing Tortillas 88 Hurricanes, Water and Wind 89 L.A. 91 Pablo Neruda, Alberto Rojas Jimenez Comes Flying 92 The Crossing 93 Full Moon 97 Dominic Tiberio The Lioness 98 Inheritance 99 In the Playhouse 100 Evangelina Vasquez Ali 101 Writing My Life 105 Michael F. Venegas Attention 107 The Store 113 Teddy 115 Wallet 119 The Starburst Process 121 Jack 123 Voice of Memory 124 JoAnn Villanueva The Other Woman 125 Dianna Virata This Is How a Man Sulks 127 Porcelain Doll 129 Hope Shattered 130 Part II: Workshop Exercises 131 Carol Lem The Face in the Mirror Redux 132 Nancy Perez In My Life 133 JoAnn Villanueva I Want to Run Away 134 Matthew Corwin Dear Ms. Kowalski 135 Nancy Perez Dear Peter 140 Dianna Virata Love Me Not 143 Milestone: The Voices of East Los 5 Part III: Writing about Literature 150 Samuel Dominguez Byronic Hero: Psychological Enigma 151 Ann Marie Gamez The Great Power of Seduction 156 Nanci Mendez A Breath of Fresh Creativity 161 A Subjective Truth 165 Nancy Perez To Help Find His Way Back 168 Alonso Quintero The Execution of an Hour 173 Danny Rivas A Time of Adolescence and Adulthood 178 Part IV: Live Reading/Cultural Event Report 183 Christine Appel Word Painters 184 Ernestine Gallegos Pigments Mixed with Wine and Words 186 Lords of Creation 188 Diana Recouvreur Puente Project Presents 190 Antonio Salcido Chicano Poetry Night 192 Robert Watana The Cycle 194 Contributors’ Notes 196 6 East Los Angeles College Editor’s Note iving in the upper canyon of Sierra Madre for two Lyears has made me more aware of nature: squirrels and deer that prance around my back hill as I practice my flute, the variety of birds; and in the evening, the distinctive sounds between crickets and cicadas. The night, especially, has revitalized my senses after living on a traffic infested boulevard for twenty-six years. I find myself writing more poems about sitting on my balcony, gazing up at the moon or the occa- sional shooting star while sipping pinot noir, like Li Po and other Chinese poets. And I’m pleased to see, even at this late juncture, my writ- ing is reflecting an ancestral tradition. In fact, this summer while work- ing on my book of memoir poetry and prose, I have had to reflect on shifting styles, subject matter, tone and voice since the 1960s when the Vietnam war and the so-called generation gap infused my first poems with anti-establishment rhetoric. Similarly, as an editor of Milestone for twenty-six years, I have been able to observe the shifting styles, tones and voices of emerging writers whose writings are also shaped by the issues and conditions of their time. Not only do we see another war reflected in their work but also the ongo- ing struggles with identity—political/social, cultural/ethnic, gender, family relationships, etc.—which, once crafted, transform the personal voice into the universal. Just recently, I had the privilege of seeing our Milestone writers read and speak before an off-campus audience, a first- time event as far as I know. The occasion was a publication party reading for Milestone 2005 at Skylight Bookstore in Los Angeles. The event came about as a result of Nora Wright’s efforts in contacting the store’s public events’ director, and as a result of our students’ presentation and audi- ence reception, the acclaimed writing organization, PEN USA, invited our ELAC writers to participate in their Emerging Voices project, which among the many opportunities offered them, will allow them to have access to other publication sources. As our writers move on to find homes for their work, this will not be the first time a writer’s first works appeared in Milestone. Luis J. Rodriguez, in his book, The Republic of East L.A., acknowledges our campus literary journal for his early publications. Over the years, he and others like Milestone: The Voices of East Los 7 Marisela Norte and Evangelina Vasquez have returned to give readings and tell of their experiences—or, as in the case of Evangelina, contributed a story in Milestone: The Voices of East Los after having been published by Poetry/L.A. and a variety of presses in Mexico. Our current issue, as in previous issues, invites readers to dialogue with our contributors’ poems, stories, narratives as they share with us their personal concerns; and as we do so, we become a community of readers and writers sharing a common ground. Whether we are invited to share a veteran’s letter to a mother whose son’s death he witnessed in Afghanistan (Matthew Corwin, “Dear Ms. Kowalski”), a young woman’s homage to her homeland, El Salvador (Nanci Mendez, “El Salvador”), a Chicano’s celebration of a live poetry reading (Antonio Salcido, “Chicano Poetry Night”), the joys of eating Mexican food (Luis Salinas, “Ever Eaten with a Mexican?”), or a tender reflective story as a writer, who has made her home in Monterey Park for a number of years, looks back on a childhood moment in Irapuato (Evangelina Vasquez, “Ali”)—we all know our own places of trials and tribulations, joys and longings that memory returns us to, and what better way to realize we are not alone than through the transforming power of reading and writing. I would like to thank the students in the Spring 2006 Creative Writing course, who applied their workshop skills to selecting the first cut of sub- missions for this issue. As always, Milestone belongs to the writers, artists, and students on this campus as well as the community. Those of us who have nurtured them in our classes, counseled them through the transfer process, and represented them on the administrative level know the importance of having their creative and academic works represented in a college literary journal. I would also like to express my ongoing appreciation to Trish Glover, Graphic Arts Designer; members of the Art Department, in particular Chris Moreno for her gathering of student art in this issue; members of the English Department: James Kenny, Department Chairperson, and my colleagues on the Milestone Committee—Joan Gurfield, Susan Suntree, and Nora Wright. Congratulations for another successful publication. — Carol Lem, Sierra Madre 8/9/06 8 East Los Angeles College Milestone: The Voices of East Los 9 Pa r t I : T h e Wo r k The majority of the work that is submitted and accepted by the Milestone staff comes from students who have work-shopped their pieces in the Creative Writing and Poetry classes. The rest are solicited from the stu- dents of this campus. Subjects and themes vary, but what they all share is a cultural identity that represents the emerging voices of East Los Angeles College. For the sake of convenience their work has been placed in alphabetical order. Milestone: The Voices of East Los 10 Christine Appel | Gods (with apologies to Coleridge’s This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison) Well, everyone left, and I’m stuck here, This East L.A. house my prison, Left behind by my friends to write this damn poem While they go see a Glenn Danzig show.